In China's major cities, a new lifestyle "semi-honeyed couples" is being
actively tried out by certain white couple husbands and wives.

Photo from Baidu.com

"Semi-honeyed couples" mean married people living apart in the same city: two
persons married to each other but not living together and only cohabiting during
the weekends. On weekdays, they will occasionally date like lovers, have dinner,
see a movie, but afterwards they will say warm goodbyes like friends and each
goes his or her way.

Some couples choose this lifestyle because objectively they have no other
choice. For example, one spouse may work at an office far away from their home.
Others, however, do it because they want their relationship to maintain a degree
of freshness and give each other sufficient freedom, hoping the "absence makes
the heart grow fonder" effect to sustain "marital vitality".

Di Xiaolan, chief doctor and sex psychologist of Beijing Huilongguan
Hospital, said that one phase of this "semi-honeyed" lifestyle, for a short
time, may help couples who have been leading too dull a life and trying to use
appropriate distance to restore that sweet and fresh spousal feelings. However,
too long a period of "separation" may make some people gradually find single
lifestyle comfortable and tend towards staying "alone". Furthermore, there is
the possibility that too big a distance removes restraints on both parties and
lead to extra-marital affairs. In Dr. Di's clinic, for quite a few couples,
because of "carelessness" when they enjoyed the freedom of living apart from
each other, the separation became for real and ended in
divorce.